Then comes the big ‘but’ … as in, that revenue model works on regional basis, not in Las Vegas, which has diversified away from gambling (which is why we think Atlantic City will come back sooner). Even if that weren’t the case, casino win in Sin City is flat. One of the new profit centers, hotel rooms, is running at far less than last year’s 92% occupancy and $180/night rates. With almost surgical precision, Covid-19 restrictions have fiendishly targeted the areas of the resort industry with the biggest profit margins. “The tourism industry is going to come back in full force,” Gallaway predicts. “Once people can travel and have fun, they’re going to do it.” When? “Until there’s a vaccine.” We think it will take a little—maybe a lot—more than that, including a drastic reduction in Coronavirus cases (presently 770 deaths a day), a disease that is damnably persistent. “We aren’t going to restore our economy until every state has this virus under control,” says Johns Hopkins University public health researcher Jennifer Nuzzo.
Oh, and lower jobless rates (especially high in minority and tribal communities, which have also borne the brunt of the pandemic). People without jobs can’t very well splurge on Ka, no matter how good it is. And, as we come up on the first virtual Global Gaming Expo, we’ll start to learn how much standard meeting-and-expo model is going to be changed by its new, online mode. Even Gallaway has doubts the conventioneers will ever be back in their former strength, asking, “The whole group industry, nationwide, worldwide, is going to decline. Businesses have learned that they can do a lot remotely and save a lot of money. So, the question is, how does that recover?”
Let’s fast-forward past the recovery and look at how the industry will be different. Tribal-gaming expert Kevin Huddleston has a number of observations, which he boils down to three key points. One is that cashless gaming is coming, another that the old restaurant and (assuming it returns) buffet models will have to change with an increased emphasis on safety. (This presumes that a post-Covid world doesn’t complacent and revert to its old ways … until the next pandemic.) Finally, hotels and spas, very hands-on businesses, will find new ways of doing business. It’s doubtful that many Strip operators would give him an argument.
While on the topic of jobs, the Silver State added 6,500 jobs last month but remains 9.5% behind where it was in August 2019. The vast bulk of the new jobs were in the Vegas metro area but it’s reeling anyway, down 12% (bad news for locals casinos) and with the hospitality sector awash in unemployment, -25%. Reno got off comparatively lightly, minus 5.5% jobs overall, and 14% in the hospitality and entertainment sector. The only silver lining to be found was an uptick in the mining sector, causing obscure Eureka County to lead the state in highest rate of employment.
The U.S. passed a shameful milestone this week, that of 200,000 Covid-19 deaths, the most of any country in the world. Only Brazil comes close. As the Boston Globe reported, “The number of dead in the U.S. is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 67 days.” Let that sink in a minute. The pandemic will be a dark and disgraceful chapter in our history. Had the federal government and some states displayed a scintilla of the initiative that the casino industry (and the private sector in general) did, the death toll would have been immeasurably less. Or, as a responsible party said, Covid-19 “affects virtually nobody.”
Had China and the World Health Organization acted responsibly at the onset of the pandemic instead of covering it up and obfuscating the entire situation, including deaths and economic destruction, would have have been significantly less.
Weary of hearing the media narrative the sole responsibility lies with President Trump and the Republican dominated states.
Las Vegas, along with the rest of the United States and the world, will recover sooner than is envisioned. People won’t forever sit on their asses at home and order in food and shop online.
There is only one Las Vegas on this Planet and people will return.
Nobody ever claims the President is “solely responsible” for the devastation and hundreds of thousands of deaths, he is responsible for purposely downplaying the dangers, for leaving it up to the states to fend for themselves, for never ramping up testing sufficiently, and sidelining the scientists and listening to advisors interested in his re-election. Other countries did exponentially better than we are doing and did, the United States should do better than smaller, weaker countries…
I was just there for 8 days, 2 days Flamingo, 3 days Orleans, and 3 days Harrahs. In my opinion, if you want to slow the spread, ban smoking in casinos, and police the wearing of masks. I saw more people smoking who kept their mask off, and other people not wearing them right or not at all. We wore ours as soon as we left the room and only took them down to take a drink when we had one. We also used their hand sanitizer often and tried to maintain a distance from other players.